Hmm... what does this post mean? Something about the communication antennas got stuck in a position obstructing the line of sight with Earth by the external fuel tank? That doesn't sound like a benign chicken-and-egg problem...

Brazil observers saw NOTHING -- no flash, no indication of ANY plume -- so it's safe to conclude the failure was on the commanding side, not the engine side?

I think we don't have enough information to draft such a conclusion.The fact that there was no plume doesn't mean that the engine is not the source of the problem. The absence of plume could mean, for example, that there is an issue with a propellant valve... (this is pure speculation)

Personally, the mass of robotic explorer craft mean little to me until they attempt an actual surface landing in a gravity well environment. And even then I am mainly interested on the final mass that actually makes it onto the surface. That's the real scale of achievement with regards to a spacecraft's mass, IMO. (Pardon the off-topic here)

If the worst does happen and it can't be salvaged, which is heartbreaking for those who have spent so many years designing and building it, could we, if asked, shoot it down for them?

We're up to page 40. Most people have this as their update thread link. Half the "news" updates are based on the speculation, naturally. And most people can work out the difference between an update and a person's thoughts.

What we can/will do is move to a fresh update thread when we either have an End of Mission point (let's hope not) or the obvious move to the spacecraft thread to cover the transit to Phobos.

We're best avoiding this thread turning into a debate about how many threads we need

Russian specialists will try to turn on the main transmitter of Phobos-Grunt, says a specialist from the space industry. Today we have not only the Russians listening for a signal, but also a European base in Australia.

It was announced earlier that Russians will try to contact the spacecraft today in 22:00-23:00 MSK which means it's two hours after posting my comment.

During the first signal received from the probe it was found out that the solar panels have deployed, the spacecraft is Sun-oriented, and the batteries are being recharged. Then the transmitter was about to be turned off according to the on-board program sequence. He was then scheduled to be turned on several times after, but no signal has been received.

The good news is - the transmitter can be turned on if commanded from Earth. This is what specialists are going to do today. They will send commands to turn the transmitter on and they will listen.

Highly unlikely. Russia has no ASAT capacity. Nor do they have ABMs that can be modified to act as ASATs, like the SM-3 could.

To be precise, Russia has no announced, tested, ASAT system. However, several years ago they announced their intention to develop one, and Anatoly Zak gave a talk last week where he showed a picture of a previously-secret ASAT that they had developed in the 1980s that he believes is what they are currently working on.

But I don't expect them to do that even if they have the system ready.

Interesting question: The U.S. actually has formal standards that state that a vehicle must be de-orbited if it poses a risk to public safety. Do we know if the Russians have similar standards?

The latest rumour on NK has it that the low-gain omnidirectional antenna is not visible from the ground stations as the first fuel tank (the one that was supposed to be disposed of after the first burn) covers it. Which in turn means that they cannot reset the spacecraft and send orders (the directional antennas have really small field of view so chances of a signal being in the way are non-existent). If that is the case, is there any chance that they could get lucky and get a shot at the directional receivers or perhaps put enough power so that the craft could detect the input on the low-gain antenna?

The latest rumour on NK has it that the low-gain omnidirectional antenna is not visible from the ground stations as the first fuel tank (the one that was supposed to be disposed of after the first burn) covers it. Which in turn means that they cannot reset the spacecraft and send orders (the directional antennas have really small field of view so chances of a signal being in the way are non-existent). If that is the case, is there any chance that they could get lucky and get a shot at the directional receivers or perhaps put enough power so that the craft could detect the input on the low-gain antenna?

Thanks for passing on. While there's still a chance, there's always hope!

Sorry, I have to leave you again... I will report more news (if there are any) about three hours later

You're doing fine work! Nearly 100,000 reads for this thread - over half of which are since the problem was noted, so there's a good amount of interest in any media and internal (even if we need to class as rumor) updates from our guys or the NK guys.